Femme Fatale
by sillygenie
Summary: After S2 ep8 Gene is asked to look for the impossible but can he bear to look? One shot. First fic.


Set after series 2 ep8.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from Ashes to Ashes. Just imagining them my own way.

Femme Fatale.

Gene Hunt was in occupation. Inside the castle of his office he was consuming his siege supplies of whisky and cigarettes as if there were no tomorrow. All day he'd kept the rest of CID at bay with only his black mood and office door to shield himself, now CID was practically deserted. He'd watched them all leave. Ray, Chris, Shaz, and Viv, bustling self-consciously and sending pitying glances his way. It sickened him to be on the receiving end of their concern. He almost preferred the hostility they'd shown when they thought he'd shot her on purpose. Pity or blame, it made no difference. He still felt like shit.

Now the hospital wanted to know who was her next of kin. Wanted him to find out.

The head surgeon, Mr Fromier, had taken Gene into his clinical office. It was the antithesis of Gene's own but Gene understood being taking into the office meant a serious conversation. It meant sit down in case you fall. It meant what I have to tell you is so terrible I can only say it in private. Gene had had to watch as the skeleton faced man assuming authority over Alex's future had pretended to read her notes whilst struggling to purse his thin lips into an appropriate expression of sympathy before speaking. Gene had hardly listened to Mr Fromier's technical mumbo jumbo and sleek platitudes. He waited for the meat of the conversation. The crux of his summoning.

If a relative couldn't be found then the unenviable task of switching her off would fall to him.

The thought of having to make that decision had galvanised Gene into action like nothing else could. The gods were punishing him. The guilt and despair he felt for having shot her once wasn't enough. Now if he didn't find a relative and she didn't wake up he'd be her executioner. Judge and jury - he'd taken those roles on willingly, but executioner…?

He knew he couldn't answer even the most basic questions about the personal history of his DI - where her parents lived, where her daughter was and everything she'd ever told him about herself was in doubt.

From the first minutes of meeting her he hadn't needed to read any file to recognise a femme fatale when he saw one. Beautiful alluring and deadly dangerous: Alex Drake.

The problem was he'd forgotten. He'd let her spin him a line and draw him in like some prize haddock.

She was stronger and more determined than he imagined. And ninety degrees smarter and more complicated - hell was she complicated. It was gut instinct his ability to know what made a person get out of bed each morning and what they'd been dreaming of before their toes first tickled the floor. His were of her, mostly.

He'd disguised the truth of his attraction as a joke, used blunt asides to keep her at bay. It hadn't been easy but he thought he'd managed to keep himself wrapped up against her wiles, but she'd got under his skin anyway. She was like a high class stripper removing her clothes, only he was one of those daft punters who didn't realise it was his clothes she was taking off until he was naked.

It was a nonsense really. He could spend every hour of everyday in her company and still never truly understand her.

Gene prided himself that he didn't need to know it all. Everyone had something they kept back, even from their mothers. Even from their lovers.

Their relationship could be more than that without understanding everything she said, without her exposing every secret detail about her life. All that had mattered to him was that they were honest each other. They were two coppers working together, committed to the cause. He'd known when she was worried, afraid, and she sure showed him when she was angry…

Well that was when he thought he'd known her.

That tape had put pay to that. Shattered his illusions as surely as his bullet had shattered her insides. She was a femme fatale, cold enough to abandon a daughter, scheming enough to flatter him with her attention when she wanted her own way. His first instincts had been right all along. He'd known she'd be trouble, that she'd get to him. Jeanette hadn't even scratched the surface: Alex had gone deep. They were connected alright. She was like some invisible octopus wrapping itself around his organs. Even if they opened him up and cut all they could see of her out, there'd still be come part of her hiding, ready to re-grow its attachment because if she died her death would always be with him, and if she lived the scar would stay with her for ever.

His hand swayed over the drawer handle. This was the least intrusive place to look for answers. He'd made up his mind he was going to start here and move onto her flat later. Well that's what he told himself to hide the irrational thought that by not looking he could prevent her dying. If he didn't look he could imagine she was going to come back. If he left everything just so she would walk back right in and start over.

But then if he found something or someone for her to live for maybe he could keep her alive.

He flicked through the file headings, found personnel then her name among the others. The file felt flimsy in his hands. Featherweight. Just like her body lying in that hospital bed with nothing but tubes to sustain her. He slumped into his chair, fingering the folder in his hand, steeling his nerves.

Her face. That was the hardest thing to see. Determined, with a hint of a smile, one of those knowing ones that excited and exasperated him in equal measure. He took a drag of cigarette staring at the face he needed to see again and biting back the memory of the washed out, flat and expressionless face he'd seen in the hospital. It was now that he could chose cowardice. He could close the file up, put it back in its drawer, get someone else to look, but he wasn't a coward.

He took out her transfer papers.

It was the usual mess up. Nothing he hadn't suspected. Intelligible writing from her previous DCI, a dogeared photocopy, station name missing - it was like they didn't care. It made him feel angry, them not caring. No wonder she'd requested a transfer. He was about to put it away when he realised that there was more on the other side of the page. He turned it over in his hand and read.

"It is the opinion of the review committee that DI Alex Drake is fit to return to work after the allotted period of compassionate leave. Should similar events occur to the shooting and ultimate death of her daughter, Molly Drake, it is advised that DI Drake be excused of duty."

Gene snapped the file shut and reached for the whisky.

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First timer, reviews welcome.


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